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http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/484496.html
`We, as Jews, know the meaning of ethnic cleansing'
By Haim Handwerker
The American Jewish World Service has gone to battle in Sudan - 'where the tragedy is just beginning.'
A small and little known Jewish organization has been working for nearly 20 years to help the poor, the sick and the downtrodden around the world. The entire world? Nearly - but not in Israel, for example.
Ruth Messinger, the director of American Jewish World Service (AJWS), realizes that there is also poverty in Israel and other urgent needs for improving the quality of life for many people. But she points out that there are many Jewish organizations in the United States committed to working in Israel.
"This doesn't mean more can't be done in Israel," she explains. "But, on the other hand, so little is being done by the Jewish world on hunger and distress in the rest of the world. So, we decided we would go in this direction." When people come and say they want to make a contribution or volunteer in Israel, she adds, "I refer them to other organizations that focus on Israel."
Messinger also notes that there are some who ask why American Jews should hurry to the assistance of Israel or other countries when there is so much distress locally in the U.S.
Currently, Sudan is the main project for Messinger and her colleagues. The organization is feeding families and children suffering from malnutrition, rebuilding water resources, constructing sanitation facilities and providing medical care to the needy. This work is being performed by activists sent to Sudan, as well as by local organizations. Messinger, who visited refugee camps in Sudan in August, says that ethnic cleansing is clearly being perpetrated there.
"There are about 2 million refugees" and the tragedy is only just beginning, she says. Fields and livestock have been destroyed, and the planting season has passed without anything being done, she says, warning of the dire state of agriculture in the afflicted region. Large supplies of food and humanitarian assistance will be required to save these people, she emphasizes.
Messinger notes that while some of the endangered people are in refugee camps, others have fled to Chad. Messinger says that her organization is trying, along with the work in the field, to call upon the U.S. government to exert its influence on the government of Sudan, which she views as clearly responsible for the situation. AJWS is also working to persuade Jewish organizations to exert pressure wherever they can to help stop the tragedy in Sudan.
"We, as Jews, know the meaning of ethnic cleansing and the indifference of the world at large. We suffered because the world remained silent. We must not repeat this mistake when it comes to people in other countries. In Rwanda, the administration and the Jewish community ignored what was happening. The Jewish community only woke up during the war in Kosovo," she says.
What is so special about Sudan? Messinger believes that - unlike other crises - there is now starting to be an awakening. "I have received a lot of calls from people. For example, when I returned from Sudan, I held a conference call with 50 rabbis and they have been speaking about this during the holidays with their synagogue congregations. Nearly every Jewish organization has joined this effort."
A war on child labor
Most of the AJWS's work is being done is less publicized areas. In Senegal, AJWS supports the local Tostan organization, which - among other projects - educates women about their bodies via music and drama, and is fighting against female circumcision in about 2,000 villages.
In southern India, thousands of children have been taken out of schools and sent to work in the silk weaving industry to exploit their small fingers. The organization has mobilized to assist the local residents to combat this phenomenon and enforce regulations against child labor. The children have been sent to special schools to catch up on their studies and the families, who lost an important source of income, have been provided with loans to help make ends meet. This was a successful campaign - child labor has almost completely come to a stop in the target area.
Another successful project began in Afghanistan back in 1995, during the Taliban regime. The organization secretly supported schools for girls, who were then prohibited from going to school. Now, after the fall of the Taliban government, the organization continues to support these schools, where boys and girls now study together. AJWS does not only operate in far-flung places, but also very close to Israel - in Gaza. Catherine Shimony, the organization's director of international programs, explains that AJWS works in conjunction with American Near East Refugee Aid (ANERA) to provide small business grants to women in Gaza. About 600 women have already received such grants, which range between $1,000 to $4,000. The concept behind this program is that female entrepreneurship has an important impact for the women involved on their children's nutrition, education and health.
The organization operates in about 40 countries, including many Muslim countries. In many cases, AJWS volunteers have been the first Jews the local residents ever met. Messinger says that the Jewish identity of the volunteers has not aroused opposition. "We don't turn to governments. Governments are more connected to politics. We are in contact with people and organizations. And here we have no problem. I don't recall cases in which they didn't want to work with us."
Local cooperation
The AJWS was established 19 years ago by the businessman Larry Phillips, who was perturbed that despite the fact that Jews contribute a lot of money to charitable groups fighting world poverty, no one knows about this philanthropy. Phillips' solution was to create a Jewish organization that would perform this work from start to finish.
Messinger, a social worker from a Conservative family, joined the organization six years ago. She was involved in New York politics for 20 years, including eight years as borough president of Manhattan.
In 1997, she ran against Rudy Giuliani for mayor of New York. He received 55 percent of the vote and she won 42 percent. Messinger, as expected, is not satisfied with American politics. "America is blind to the great distress throughout the world," she says. Politicians and the press in American pay scant attention to this, she adds. "They simply don't know. They don't know that 800 million people throughout the world go to bed hungry. America was shocked by the attack on the Twin Towers, and this was really a very painful event. On the other hand, we must not forget that in Africa every day 6,000 people die from AIDS and no one says a thing."
The AJWS's work also provides Americans with an opportunity for political education. "We had a group of 20 students who went to Honduras to build a facility for drinking water. It's not that the students were more physically fit for the hard work, but this was an opportunity to enable them to become acquainted with what is happening in the world. We try to impress upon the students that despite the terrible problem of poverty and illiteracy in the world, an individual still has the power to do a lot.
"This is in essence the power of a democratic society. If the citizen sees that the government is not doing enough, he can take initiative himself and change things." But the organization is not only focused on strengthening citizen action in America. In its activities throughout the world, AJWS tries to forge partnerships with local players. "Most of our work is to local non-governmental organizations that seek to implement social change in their country, in their community," Messinger says.
"Unlike other organizations," she adds, "we realize that we do not have the power and knowledge to reduce world hunger or stop the spread of AIDS. We assume that people in the field know what is best for them and we try to assist them - with advice or financial assistance. We don't carry out the projects for them. The people do the work for themselves."
Once AJWS identifies an appropriate local partner, it establishes a long-term relationship with it, she explains. While the organization is active in many countries, there are not masses of volunteers. At the beginning of 2004, about 70 professionals set off on assistance projects throughout the world, together with 40 college students and about 250 teenagers. In this area, AJWS is interested in connections with Israel: "We would like to recruit volunteers from Israel. There is a lot of know-how in Israel in various fields, from computers to agriculture. This experience and knowledge, which is often very unique, could be applied in many impoverished places throughout the world."
NATO AIR said:well her people do include jews
and i figure maybe some of the donations come from israelis
well, this is what happens when you read too much into things getting hopeful or inspired
